The European Parliament thinks that the three-strikes-and-you're-offline …

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By a 314-297 vote, the European Parliament has signaled its opposition to recent initiatives to kick users off the Internet for repeated copyright infringement. The vote came on an amendment (Word document) to the wide-reaching Bono Report on the Cultural Industries, which is intended in part to develop a policy strategy for the European creative industry. And whenever the creative industry is involved, there's a question of copyright.

Recently, the movie and music industries have focused on a two-pronged strategy for fighting file-sharing. There's a stumbling block, though: both prongs involve the cooperation of ISPs. Big Content wants broadband providers to filter traffic on their networks to keep copyright-infringing content off of it as well as to kick repeat offenders off of the Internet.

Parliament doesn't want any part of the latter strategy. The vote indicates that the members of parliament "want to strike a balance between the interests of rights holders and those of consumers, and that big measures like cutting off Internet access shouldn't be used," according to a spokesperson for the European Parliament.

The amendment "calls on the Commission and the Member States... to avoid adopting measures conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness, such as the interruption of Internet access."

France appears to be the furthest along in its three-strikes plan. The Sarkozy government has thrown its support behind the idea, which would see P2P users receive warnings the first two times they are detected sharing copyrighted material. The third time, their Internet access would be revoked.

Similar plans have been floated in the UK, and the government there has made it clear that it wants ISPs and rightsholders to come to an agreement on their own. If not, the government plans to move ahead with legislation mandating a three-strikes approach. ISPs are pushing back, not wanting to be thrust into the position of copyright cop, judge, and jury.

Today's vote is nonbinding, so member states can still move ahead with their respective plans. Still, it indicates significant opposition on the part of Europe's lawmakers to Big Content's push to have ISPs play the role of copyright enforcers.